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Wi-fi cellphones
Each year cellphone makers surmise the needs of their consumer base, making predictions like new slim phones, better video, but always overlooking one practicality that makes phone use such a hindrance: the dropped calls.

This year Motorola and Nokia have promised to get back to the basics and improve call reception. How will this promise be kept? Through Wi-fi, the same technology that provides computers with a cordless connection to the Internet. T-Mobile also plans to offer phones that piggy-back off of their T-Mobile hotspots.

The push for Wi-fi services for cellphones looked to my media experts as the next progressive step to receiving and controlling all of your digital content from your phone. Networks developed by Qualcomm and Nokia are expected to enable cable programming to get beamed directly to a phone, with on demand programming tuned to a handset.

Will this take-off? Milestones have been set and cellular service providers such as Verizon and Sprint to say that next year their subscribers will enjoy the ability to customize their home screen with whatever content they desire (news, stocks, sports).

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The FCC has voted to allow Qualcomm to continue its multi-million dollar project to create a cell phone tv service. Tight restrictions handed down from the FCC have been viewed as a successful, yet compromising, win for MediaFLO USA, the managing company for the project which is a subsidiary of Qualcomm.

Three years ago MediaFLO began acquiring UHF Channel 55 throughout the country. Today it holds all licenses to the spectrum, and intends to roll out its service in early 2007. Verizon Wireless is currently the only wireless provider that has contracted to use the cell phone tv service, expected to cost $12 per month for its subscribers.

Allowing the utilization of Channel 55 for MediaFLO's cell phone tv service has been described as a measure to "further wireless broadband deployment." Many broadcasters are in the process of switching their analog transmission signals to digital. This change makes part of the former broadcasting spectrum available for redevelopment, namely wireless device services.

MediaFLO's competitor, Crown Castle International, is expected to offer TV content delivery over cell phones using a different technology. Requests made by MediaFLO to limit interference by Crown Castle have yet to be reviewed by the FCC.

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Amidst lackluster quarterly results, speculation surrounds a potential buyout of the No. 3 US cellular service provider Sprint-Nextel. In August 2005, following the Sprint-Nextel merger, many predicted the company would be one of the first to usher in a new "fourth-generation" network. More than a year later, specialists feel the company suffers from an identity crisis which contributes to its stagnant growth. Sprint-Nextel possibly offers too much for too many, and lacks a core customer base to recruit.

The Sprint-Nextel merger may not live up to expectations, its low stock price a liability, now 25 percent below its January 2006 price. Its weak stock is an attractive opportunity for rival wireless service providers and major cable companies to make a buy-out of the company. The technology that operates the Sprint-Nextel network (CDMA) conflicts with T-Mobile's network technology (GSM), but T-Mobile's parent company is eager to expand in the US and may initiate yet another Sprint-Nextel merger.

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Sprint-Nextel push to talk

Sprint-Nextel has partnered with Qualcomm to improve its push to talk service. The Sprint-Nextel network operates on Qualcomm's CDMA system. By adopting Qualcomm's new QChat service, Sprint-Nextel becomes the exclusive rights holder for the QChat technology, which was adopted to decrease the latency of it's push to talk service.

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Sprint/Nextel has announced that it will partner with Motorola and Samsung to create a mobile WiMAX network.

Earlier speculation of the cost for a Sprint/Nextel WiMAX service anticipated an overall lower fee, but analysts now wonder, "Could the cost be even lower?"

Sprint/Nextel has selected to implement a network aimed at providing mobile access to the WiMAX connection. A cheaper alternative to implement the WiMAX network is available however, through a series of fixed base stations. Since testing of the WiMAX infrastructure is still underway, and the first devices supporting WiMAX are not expected until 2007, it is still too soon to tell which option Sprint/Nextel will select.

Michael Finneran describes the factors that contributed to Sprint/Nextel choosing the WiMAX specification as well as the commercial rise of WiMAX and other BWA (broadband wireless access) technologies.

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